Have a little empathy. Imagine how difficult it must be for America’s gun control advocacy operations these days while people are buying literally every gun manufacturers can produce, as fast as they can crank them out. It doesn’t say much for the narrative they’re trying to sell when literally millions of new gun owners are being added to the ranks of the country’s armed population.
The FBI has released the un-adjusted NICS background check totals for August and — surprise! –they’re up. Again. Still. The Fibbies ran more than 3.1 million background checks last month, up 33% from the year ago totals. FYI, background checks do not equal gun sales, but they’re a good barometer. The NSSF should be out with their adjusted numbers soon which will be a better measure of actual gun sales.
In the mean time, with guns, ammo, and gear continuing to fly off store shelves at a historic, frenetic pace, Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety felt they had to spin say something about these developments in order to keep the troops from getting too dejected.
They issued a press release yesterday which amounts to a call for everyone to . . .
“With protestors being shot in the streets and gun violence on the rise, more guns is not the recipe for public safety,” said Nick Suplina, managing director of law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. “Fortunately, polls show this jump in sales leads more Americans to support common sense gun safety laws, which is bad news for every 2020 candidate who is still taking orders from the gun lobby, starting with President Trump.”
Except for the fact that support for gun control is cratering with the public. And there’s no better measure of that fact that the tens of millions of guns that are being sold, a huge percentage of which are to first-timers.
“Gun sales have been surging since the pandemic began, so it’s impossible to identify the exact reason for this month’s sales,” said Rob Wilcox, deputy director of policy and strategy at Everytown. “But it is clear that President Trump and gun companies are recklessly fear mongering every day, which is dangerous and wrong at a time when the threat of gun violence is on the rise and hospitals are overflowing with patients.”
Really? Is it that difficult to find a reason for the sales spike?
Do you think the videos of riots and burning buildings in a small, midwestern town might have something to do with it? How about the national spike in crime as law enforcement is demonized and defunded? And the fact that one of the two candidates for President is running the most anti-gun campaign in U.S. history might be having an effect on buyer behavior as well.
You can read the rest of Everytown’s attempt to buck up the gun-grabbing troops if you want. If nothing else, it’s a textbook example of some Baghdad Bob-level gaslighting agitprop. In the mean time, the rest of us will continue to comb the web looking for ammunition for under 90 cents a round.